Gas-treating process



CORNELIS LOURENS, OI AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS, ASSIGNOR T GENERAL NORIT COMP, LIMITED, OF AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS, A CORPORATION OF THE NETHERLANDS.

GAS-TREATING PROCESS.

No Drawing. Application filed November 11, 19242, Sergei No. 600,483, and in t 1 19 1.

The object of this invention is to provide an improved process of separating mixtures of gases (which term is used to include-yapors) and in particular to provide an improved process of drying gases.

In many industrial operations e.. g. in

' working blast furnaces it is important to use dry air. The processes hitherto proposed are expensive and unsatisfactory, thus it has been proposed to remove moisture by freezing; this calls for expensive plant. It has also been proposed to use hygroscopic agents,

\ are treated with active carbon which term is action is so speedy, e-ifective and complete,

vegetable material containing or originally used to denotea product used in various in-' dustries for decolorizing liquids and for making same filtrable; this active carbon is also termed decolorizing carbon, or filtration carbon. It has been discovered that this material, (which differs profoundly in its roperties from ordinary wood-charcoal or one charcoal) has the power of rapidly removing moisture from gases and thatthis thalt the material can be used on a commercial sca e.

Throughout this specification and claim. the term active carbon is to be understood as being used to denote this variety of carbon only, and this form of carbon is very different in its pro erties, from the variety of carbon (charcoa employed in gas masks for theabsorption of poisonous gases.

Especially suitable material is the granular active carbon obtained from a vegetable raw material and possessing a structure originating from said fibrous material.

It is known, that active'carbon can be ob t-ained by activation of various carbon 'containing materials such as wood, peat, browncoal, peat-charcoal, wood-charcoal and other containing cellulose, or of mineral co the Netherlands November The artificial activation can, as is known, be efi'ected by liquid, solid or gaseous reagents with the aid of heat. Owing to this artificial activation process the adsorptive capacity of l the char for gases, coloring matter in solu tion, etc., is very largely increased.

It is preferable to dehydrate the active carbon before use either by ignition or by heating in vacuo, or'by a combined treatment.

Granular active carbon may be placed in suitable containers e. g. in cylinders and the air or other gas may be passed therethrough,

when large quantities of gas may thus be economicall freed from moisture.

Experiments have shown that active car- 'bon abstracts the moisture so rapidly, that gases may thus be dried on a large scale. In treating such large quantities a plurality of cylinders or other containers are preferably charged with granular active carbon and connected in series. A

Suitable cooling means maybe provided to pressed so that it is often desirab e to effect i the treatment under pressure.

The gas can be previously cooled e. g. to

5-0 C. Such a combination of cooling and adsorption and if desired compression is of special value since it is much cheaper to cool a gas-to 0 C. than to e. g. 15 (minus 15) C. which may be necessary if the water va or is to be frozen out.

battery of containers can be employed with connections sothat when the activev carbon in a. given container is saturated,

nov

that container can be cut out and a fresh container (freshly chapgedor regenerated) can be placed in the circuit.

Thesaturated carbon can be regenerated Vacuum can be used or heated dry inert gas can be passedthrough the container.

-A heating jacket can be provided or an inner pipe may be arranged with openings I the last elements can be cooled more than the first.

The dryand cooled air may be employed for cooling the moist air on the counter-eurrent rinciple by using the known cold- 1 interc angers.

After use,'the material may be sieved to remove any pulverulent material.

The rocess can e. 0-. also be used to separate lig t and heavy hydrocarbons or in the 15 gas purification e. g. to remove carbon oxide carbon dioxide and other impurities from technically produced hydrogen, especially with the aid of cooling and pressure; the selective adsorptive capacity of the active carbon enables its application for separating many other gases.

I claim as my invention:

Ihe process of separating gases which comprises passing the gases through a plurality of containers charged with active carbon and cooling said containers so that the last container is cooled more than the first.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto signed my name this first day of November, 1922.

CORNELIS LOURENS. 

